


amantes sunt amentes

by MourningPluto



Category: Homestuck
Genre: ? - Freeform, Eldritch Abominations, Humanstuck, M/M, weird demon things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 09:33:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MourningPluto/pseuds/MourningPluto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You skip stones across the lake to take your mind off the dead things which whisper absently in the forest surrounding you, until suddenly, all at once, the voices stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	amantes sunt amentes

You could spot a dead thing from a mile away because in short, you’re well-versed in death. Your father has a book of shit that’s full of really ugly things whose faces you’ve memorized. Aside from that, you also tend to classify yourself as special. If something was gonna come after you – well, it _wouldn’t_ , for one thing, and for another, it’d be proper fucked. 

You live in a house that’s nearby the lake – the lake that everyone says is haunted, but you know better. The dead things don’t go by the lake, probably because most of them can’t swim. In light of this, you like to sneak out in the early hours of the morning and skip stones on its surface – which might be tempting fate, but so be it. That’s you. Tempting fate. 

You sit on the grassy hill which overlooks the lake; you’ve already done the hard work of collecting stones, not all of which are ideal for skipping. The best ones are round, flat, smooth. You’ve taken all the best ones and watched them sink into the nearly black waters, and consequently the only rocks you can find now are just that, rocks. Clunky things. They don’t skip, they sail, and by this point you only do it out of habit or as a means of anger release. 

The moon is out tonight, which means lots of whispering. The whispers don’t bother you as much as they should. You’re inclined to wish – more than once out loud – that the forest dwellers which surround your humble, not at _all_ supernatural suburbia, would shut the fuck up. (It’s weird how none of your neighbors ever acknowledge the fact that something might be up. Bodies have shown up with puncture wounds on their necks, holes in their chests, tentacle marks on their limbs. These murders are reported as animal attacks, but really now, what kind of animal is capable of such wicked deeds? You’ve noticed that your peers and teachers alike are quick to defend their completely normal lifestyle. They sure do put the ‘cult’ in ‘occult’.) 

The whispering is particularly egregious tonight, and as with every night that it raises above a quiet murmuring you invite the things surrounding you to _shut the fuck up_. As per usual, they do not listen, though they do not go after you, either. You throw another rock into the lake and it lands there with a loud _splunking_ sound. 

You are immediately set off when the whispers quiet, all at once. All you hear is the wind whistling softly through the trees. In the middle of August, you’re suspicious as to why it would be windy, how any sort of zephyr could be conjured when it’s been nothing but hot and sticky for weeks. The whispers have silenced and you know it isn’t your doing.

“Thanks,” you say anyway, your voice shaking a little. 

You take a step back and your foot catches on a root – you fall down the hill, arms reaching out for any kind of leverage, and you swallow rather thickly upon landing just a few feet away from the murky depths of the lake. Rubbing you head, you curse under your breath and inspect yourself for damages, of which there are none, save for the bruised ego that’s allotted to you not knowing the forest as well as you’d thought. 

“Lost?” 

The voice is clear seems to be directed at you. This is unusual. 

You stand up, wiping your grass-and-blood covered hands (you think you might have skinned your hands on some kind of bark or stone on the way down, that must be it) on your jeans. In front of you is the lake, still and silent as ever and you look to both sides to find nothing but trees, standing solemn and surrounding you just like they always did. Might it be your imagination that they seem to be formidable? 

Of course it is. Trees, they don’t _appear_ as anything. They’re fucking trees. 

Well, now you just feel like a sheep. Or like one of your stupid classmates, telling you that it’ll be real sad not to have that girl whose name everyone’s already forgotten in algebra, but speaking of which did you get the homework?

This leads you to look behind you, so you do. 

Tall and devilishly handsome is someone you know not to be human, though he passes for one pretty well. He’s dressed all in black and his hair – also black – is slicked up, back, and out of his eyes, with irises that glow faintly not unlike the moon. He smiles at you, and his teeth are much too sharp, though again you suppose that overall if he’s going for human, he passes pretty well. He’s a good few inches taller than you, and he’s got his hands pushed into his jacket pockets. You aren’t sure why he’s smiling, nor are you all that sure you want to know.

“No,” you tell him. You look up and decide at once not to wonder where he came from or how he appeared so suddenly or how on earth he could have silenced all of those voices which lurk in the woods. “No, I’m not lost. I know where I am.” 

He must think it’s funny, because he laughs, and it’s soft and suitably unsettling. “You sure about that? Because I’m looking at you right now and you don’t look like someone who knows his way.” He looks so cocksure; though you can barely see him, since the moon only illuminates so much of him, you are able to detect a distinctly shit-eating grin. 

Suddenly you find yourself more annoyed than anything else.

“Well, looks can be deceiving,” you say idly. After all, you know exactly what he is. He isn’t fooling you. Then again, he might not want to, but if he’s got some hidden form he’s trying to repress, you can’t help thinking he might as well give it up. The only thing remotely disarming about the situation is probably how you have yet to disentangle yourself from it, which if you were smart you would.

You never said you were smart. 

“What are you doing here?” He looks at you like he’s trying to pick you apart, like he wants in your head, and some demons are capable but it’s obvious he’s not because you’d know if he were rooting around in your cranial cavity. He’s no clairvoyant; wishes, probably, but everyone wishes and as far as you’re concerned it doesn’t do them a lot of good. 

“I come here every night. Like throwin’ stones. How about yourself?”

“I think I’m asking the questions here,” he says. His confidence is incredible. “You want me to leave? Should I vacate the premises? I wasn’t aware you owned the lake.” 

You find yourself put off by how close he stands to you.

“Okay, so now you’re aware.” You take a step back; he takes a step further. You think he might fancy killing you, and on some nights you’ve come to the lake for the specific purpose of luring out monsters. Haven’t had much luck with that, but maybe tonight’s your night. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

His smile widens, like maybe he wanted you to say that.

“Do you have a name?” You look at him incredulously and he keeps talking. “Okay, I’m assuming you have a name. That was just my incredibly subtle way of asking what it was. Give it to me.” You don’t like the way he says that; like he’s trying to steal it from you.

Also, ‘incredibly subtle’? Please.

“Eridan,” you tell him. “The name’s Eridan. You didn’t answer my question, either.” You aren’t sure entirely why you’re egging him on, but there’s something about him that just begs it. The smugness which radiates from his place in the shadows; yes, you think that’s what urges you to be ornery, to talk back, to question who the fuck he thinks he is. Whether or not it’s warranted, you have no idea. 

“I have a lot of names,” he says, with the unmistakable tone of someone beginning a monologue.

“Oh, God,” you say, with the equally unmistakable tone of someone completely unequipped to deal with so much bullshit in one night. 

“They called me the Orphaner for a while. I’ve decided to allow you to call me that as well.” You find yourself struggling not to roll your eyes – and, oops, there you go, completely rolling them! What are the odds of that?

“You’re the most dramatic demon I’ve ever met,” you tell him. His hand, which had nonchalantly made its way to your shoulder, recoils. “I mean, are you fucking kidding me? You walk in with your sneaky entrance, appearing out of nowhere. You act like you’re trying to cloak yourself with mystery when really you’re coming across as awkward and strange. Your sentences are stilted, and your enigmatic act is a total farce. Just who the _fuck_ do you think you are?”

He blinks at you.

“Answer me!”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he says. You notice something funny about how this time he’s the one taking a step back, bigger than yours had been. “There aren’t really demons here, you scrawny piece of shit. It’s just something kids say.” 

You frown at him. There are no words to properly convey your disappointment. None.

“You really think that?” You take a step closer to him, just like he’d done before, and suddenly the height difference really doesn’t bother you at all. “Is that what you really believe?” 

“Well, yeah,” he says. “I mean, look at you. You’re what, seventeen? What the fuck would a kid like you be doing alone in the forest if he thought demons were in it?”

“Mmm. Okay.”

“What?”

“Then you’re really gonna hate this.” 

Deciding at once that this bizarre specimen with the nice hair and eyes which (inexplicably) glow in the darkness of night, you descend on him. With the knowledge he will not be leaving to tell the tale, you provide him a luxury most others do not get; you allow him to see you.

No, the _real_ you.

Your eyes light up, bright violet encompassing your irises. Dark, black tendrils emerge from your sides and snatch him up (your favorite way to kill) and your teeth grow into sharp, terrifying caricatures of what you make them out to be as a human. Your skin, no longer tan and freckled, is reminiscent of the moon which makes the lesser demons that dwell in the woods chitter with excitement. 

You are also rather tall. 

It’s hard to believe you could find this squirming, stuttering, fearful thing and mistake it for human. But you suppose everyone makes mistakes once in a while.

Part of you wishes you'd gotten his real name.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a really drabbly, messy kind of thing that I will continue some other night.


End file.
